Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm

All good things come in threes: locations for the three day schedule of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm segued seamlessly from the clean-lined space of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Pavilion, to the Baroque interiors of the Berns Salonger concert and events hall. Three collections stood out in the schedule, thanks to their refreshing injection of outsider influences.

For Back, by Ann-Sofie Back, the designer re-worked elements from her previous mainline collections into spontaneous silhouettes. Sportswear inspired elastic waistbands paired with leather skirts and Nike flipflops conveyed a ‘senile chic’ vibe. Ahead of the show, Back explained: “It’s about me trying to make fashion interesting, and give myself a challenge.” Models walked the concrete runway to a chaotic mash-up of Khia’s ‘My Neck, My Back’, a fitting soundtrack to Back’s rebellious aesthetic.

AltewaiSaome referenced the Italian craftsmanship that designer duo Natalia Altewai and Randa Saome were introduced to at the Polimoda International Institute. The delicate fabrics and menswear inspired separates embellished with geometric beaded patterns demonstrated a pursuit for quality, as shared by the AltewaiSaome woman: “We like how fashion used to be before, when things were well made,” they said. Altewai and Saome admitted the collection felt closer to them personally, saying “we started thinking in a different way and wanted to project that.”

Despite being the newcomer at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm, Erïk Bjerkesjö made no less of an impression. Wearing a deceivingly conservative black-on-black outfit at his studio ahead of the show, Erïk cited sci-fi movies, the Icelandic online game ‘Eve’ and a love for basketball, particularly the New York Knicks, as seminal influences to his work. Although his aesthetic can be interpreted as dark, there was a relaxed feel about the smooth leather lace-up shoes and easy fitting shorts that offset the stiff hand-painted pieces and structured tops. The Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film artist, references of his previous collection were still there, he stressed, but “more detailed and not so minimalistic.”